colors of japan

I found a weekend of pictures from spring that I never blogged!! eek.  How could that have happened?! I hate super late blogging because I'm not nearly as excited about the pictures as I was when it happened- and I can't remember my favorite details- but I'll do my best!

Shifunekannon reminded me of a Dr. Suess book. It was incredible. It never ceases to amaze me when we can walk into such an incredible display of nature right in the middle of a concrete jungle.  This place is literally giant bowl of hydrangea bushes and shrines plopped in the middle of a hugely and densely populated city.

 The views from every angle are wonderful.

 this is from the bottom center of the bowl.

 I had the most delicious blueberry yogurt softoo creamoo here.  What will our kids do when there aren't ice cream cones at every stop when we move back to the states?!
I love this picture of the ice cream worker helping the older ladies pick out their flavors.

we also visited ashikaga sometime in spring :)   It was a decent drive- but pretty beautiful.  Driving AWAY from tokyo is always pretty relaxing and beautiful so we don't mind going a little further to get places.  Heading towards tokyo is almost always a bit crazy and/or stressful!  Traffic is one of my least favorite things in the whole world.

Ashikaga has some of the hanging wisteria that japan is so famous for.  I preferred the truffula trees and dr seuss bushes to this place!   Botany is my least favorite branch of biology.  I find it rather boring. But- the flowers were beautiful- just not all that exciting.

so- here are a bunch of pictures I felt obligated to take since I paid so much to go into the gardens.  It cost us something like 5xs as much as shiofunekannon.

 Our kids did have fun adventuring around.

 this place killed me.  It was a giant dome of flowers. and chairs in front of the dome so you could watch them.  Watch them do what- I'm not quite sure,

 The resting yard was also pretty fun.  Our kids had a lot of fun running around it and he japanese enjoyed watching them.

 these flowers are pretty awesome looking.

 Our boys nearly took a spill into the murky waters here.  at least they were having fun :)

 and kakigori to finish off our day.

 on our drive home- we passed a river draped by carp flags!  it was pretty awesome looking.  these pictures don't really show just how big these fish were or how many there were!!

 but I LOVE this picture of metta!  her dirty little nose is the best part.

 there's a spring holiday (kodomo no hi) in japan where they hang giant carp flags from trees and across rivers.  I really want a giant collection of carp flags- but Kent doesn't seem to think we need them.

 Some of the flags are easily 12 feet tall!!